becausethebike

Things I’ve neglected to mention til now include that my return trip to Albany was to be made by plane, not bike. (Had to get back to work! I’m home now and have logged three full days at the office this week.) Much more alarmingly, I haven’t found a minute to mention the great irony of my adventure. Its bittersweet end was conducive to neither biking nor blogging.

Indeed, my western Michigan destination was a beach community that prohibits bicycles. I was forced to get off my Motebecane and push her in the last quarter mile from the gated entrance to my warm welcome at “All Decked Out,” the just-south-of-South-Haven beach house where I’ve been spending a week with friends each summer for the past five or six years. The house itself quite literally hangs over Lake Michigan, a veritable land’s end of the eastern time zone. This location, replete with fresh water stretching to the horizon, and skies bigger than in the most remote corners of the darkest Berkshire nights, can fool you into thinking you’re at the edge of the world. The absolute lack of cell service reinforces this idea at every turn, and the wireless I needed to publish posts was even tougher to come by. Throw a half barrel of Bell’s Brewery’s best beer in the mix and it was pretty easy to retire my helmet and iPad for the long weekend. Bike and blog forsaken.

Each day since I’ve returned to home and work, I’ve intended to pump something out here. But I end my days without submission. I’ve had some time, and some things to say (so much!), but I’ve lacked motivation and inspiration. Until today.

Today I got back on the bike for the first time since returning from my trip. It was a short ride, but once you get the wheels turning, it’s hard to get them to stop. I mean until you get to a hill. Today I started to ride and I wanted to write, and I embraced every damn hill – with more planned for tomorrow.

So here I am again. Back on the bike and back on the blog. I could use more hours in a day to output the quantity and quality of words that I’m striving for, and to always, always to get in more miles. But the most important thing I’ve taken away from two weeks on the bike is to truly commit and as Bruce constantly insists, to “Just Do It.”

09.01.2011 Sunset from “All Decked Out”
photo by SSB

Anna and I killed it from Chelsea to Kalamazoo today. And by “it”, I mean our asses.

Mid-ride chamois cream application… Not the brightest idea.

I’ve landed with friends in Chelsea, Michigan, where I had a REST day. (Rest day = Twenty miles with Dave – and FAST compared to my usual snail’s pace – then a long nap.)

The rest day was sort of unplanned. It could have been the day I used eventually to make it across the lake by ferry and then to Chicago by train, but the list of extremely unaccomodating public transport options I’ve encountered on this trip includes the Milwaukee to Chicago Amtrak line. (They actually make you buy a box, then disassemble your bike to get it in the box to put it on the train… And I’m not carrying a damn pedal wrench.)

I know I would love taking the ferry across The Lake, but the whole process would have been such a huge, expensive hassle that I’m not fully prepared and tooled for.

Best still, a rest day gave me the opportunity to hang with my buddy Carol J. tonight, sans men and boys, a HUGE bonus! Delaying the last leg of this trip a day also means that Crazy Anna will be able to ride to South Haven with me, and I’m looking forward to having a ride partner.

I’m at about 700 miles right now, with about 130 – 150 to go. There’s lots to catch up on here, the blog is only at mile 500 or so. Soon, soon, soon.

Rest day ride w Dave, shot @ 18mph, Anna-Edmonds-style.

East Michigan welcome committee.

Thank you, Anna Edmonds, for taking the best picture of me, ever.

Locked and loaded.

Safety first.

First of many.

There was so much excitement today. Fruit Loops! Border crossing! Three cities! Roadside bathrooms! But most exciting of all… Friends. Lots more on all this later. For now here’s The Motor City.

GM building at border. Those stars and stripes were a sight for sore eyes.

Michigan Avenue.

All I could think was of how many LeWitt wall drawings we could fit in here.

Local flavors.

Local color.

The Motor City, from Michigan Ave., “the forgotten spoke”.

I couldn’t have been more lucky to be deposited outside of Port Rowan and, having landed there, to have found my way to the home of Rick and Caryn, who are starting up a B+B in town. When I finally managed to get Caryn on the phone after an exhausting Saturday night room search in this tiny resort town, she sounded so much like my oldest sister that I wanted to leap through the phone immediately to hug her. As she told me her house was full of family and she wouldn’t have room for me, my voice must have dropped ten octaves. That audible disappointment, exaggerated by the previous moment’s excitement for such a familiar sounding voice at the other end of the line, was clear. Caryn hesitated for another split second, then came right back to say that they could go ahead and squeeze me in.

I showed up at their doorstep less than an hour later to find Rick on the porch hustling kids inside for dinner. He took one look and sized me up quick. Right away I was invited to join them for dinner. I was made to feel like a member of the family so instantly, that I half expected to see my nieces and nephews at the table.

Instead, it was Rick and Caryn’s two nieces, Faith and Abbie, along with their grandson Mason who were my dining companions. It was just an easy meal to get food in some bellies before Caryn’s sister Laurie who’d been visiting with the two girls, packed up into the car to head north. But damn if it wasn’t the best hot dogs and chips I’d ever eaten.

Faith, Mason, Abbie

I was thrilled to be in such homey environs. The two little girls each had hugs and kisses for me before leaving. Mason wanted to be anywhere I went. Perhaps best of all, especially for the sake of the many people I’ve met since, they let me do some laundry!

The hospitality was exemplary, but after a day that taxed me so much mentally and emotionally as well as physically, I wasn’t great with conversation. I retreated for a long, hot shower and then to town in hopes of a wireless signal, to no avail. Back at the house, Mason had been put to bed and Rick and Caryn were occupying the couch. I tried to tap out a blog entry on the computer they graciously offered, but had such epic brain fry, that nothing useful would come out.

Over my shoulder, I had an eye on the fantastic Canadian humor show, Just for Gags, that Rick and Caryn were giggling together about. It was a sophisticated Candid Camera, with no audio, which somehow made each bit much funnier than it might have been.

I finally surrendered to bed for my best sleep so far of the whole trip. The accommodations were plush and I have never experienced such luxurious sheets in my whole entire life, it was like sleeping between Angelina Jolie’s lips. I hated knowing I would leave the next day.

I was stuck awake thinking of the many similarities between Caryn and my sister Cindy, missing her. Their impeccable decorating taste, with a particular talent for turning other people’s cast offs into treasures might have been the most obvious comparison, if they didn’t both have a pile of thick, wavy blonde brown hair framing their bright eyes and easy smiles. During dinner conversation, I learned they were the exact same age.

Ultimately though, it was this family’s deep Christian beliefs that so closely reflected those of my sister. Never overt, but always present – in the word “blessed” being used more genuinely than I might kick it around, in the occasional religious artifact mixed in among the old and new decor that ran throughout the house, and in words like “fellowship” that don’t otherwise tend to fall into conversation. Like my sister Cindy, you had to be looking to notice these things, there was no agenda being pressed.

Though I try to remain positive, I’m a terrible cynic, which often renders me some kind of jealous when I encounter a general belief in a goodness in the world that comes from God, as I did in Port Rowan this weekend. It was, of course, that very goodness that opened the door to me when alternatives seemed so bleak. While I don’t share my sister’s beliefs, I respect them and admire her dedication immensely. I appreciate how her faith has fulfilled and carried her for so much of her life. I envy my sister’s ability to trust as she does; I wish it were easier for me to just I turn off my inner skeptic and get there.

Watching Just for Gags over my shoulder and theirs to see Caryn and Rick laughing on the couch together, the love and happiness between them was deeply evident. These scenes, which I don’t often enough glimpse as I make my way through everyday life, restore my own twisted faith and belief for absolute goodness in the world, whatever its origin. And they make me miss my sister (all three of my sisters) something fierce. I fell asleep heavy-hearted.

In the morning there was a full breakfast, complete with homemade blueberry jam. Before I left, Rick told me that Caryn had just coined the official name for their B+B to make it official, “Second Home”. A goodbye hug from Mason and I was off again.

Perfect.

“Second Home Bed and Breakfast” Port Rowan, ON

Sure. My legs are tired. This becomes most apparent when I’m working into a headwind or climbing a hill. Maybe even more apparent if I have to climb stairs. Otherwise, I don’t think of it. They don’t hurt, they’re just tired.

I am getting baked by the sun. My skin is the color of my adolescent summer self, the four year old who used to run around outside all day with no shirt on all summer like the boys. That was when we still spelled Cancer with a little “c”, and sunscreen was only used y the Irish. it didn’t for a second occur to me to bring any on this trip. A negative image of my gloves is burned onto each hand, a negative bandit mask around my eyes.

About Mid afternoon each day the tops of my knees start to ache, I think that’s the tendons that connect quads to kneecaps.

My hips have screamed out in pain, once causing me to leap off my bike for a necessary stretch. This led to morning and night stretching rituals, which seems to have drastically improved the situation.

I have a lot of new pimples, mostly around my nose and also where my chin strap contacts my chin.

There’s significant saddle sore from one side of the seams of my shorts. (But just one side?)

My hands are very dry, my cuticles are cracking and chafing.

I had blisters that gave way to callouses on my hands, a couple n between my fingers where my gloves hit. Ouch.

My eyes have been bloodshot everyday, and tonight for the first time, one of my contacts was stuck to my right eye. Took me ten minutes to massage it out. This seems bad. New ones tomorrow!

My head is itchy.

But mostly it’s the right neck and shoulder thing that occupies me. As if someone is taking a very pointed stone, jamming it just behind the center of my right shoulder blade and twisting, twisting, twisting.

Also, this eye thing kind of hurts.

Just passed through Pain Court? Seems like I’ve been here all day.

(Had to use a discarded coffee cup as gorilla pod stand in.)